Identifying Trauma Informed Teaching

Imagine you’re being chased by a tiger. Your heart races as you feel a surge of adrenaline preparing your body to fight, flight, or freeze. Now imagine that right after escaping the tiger, you have to learn how to multiply fractions. You would likely find this task near impossible, even if you usually find math easy.

Trauma-informed teaching starts with an understanding of how trauma can impact learning and behavior. With this approach, educators think about what student behavior may be telling them. And they reflect on their teaching practices to find ways to better support students who may be experiencing trauma.

Trauma can slow down or completely stop our ability to learn. When our bodies sense a threat, energy rushes toward brain regions specialized in averting danger. This is essential for keeping us alive. But it also means that energy shifts away from the brain regions that help us learn.

When students are experiencing trauma, they might be more distracted or take longer to complete tasks. They may be more irritable or jumpy. And they’re more likely to fall behind in class or get in trouble for behavior issues.

When considering implementing trauma-informed practices in your school, you might find yourself asking: How do I know which students have experienced trauma, so I can teach those students in a trauma-informed way? While it’s important to identify students in need of extra support, we can use trauma-informed practices with every single student because they benefit them all.

Think of a wheelchair-accessible ramp to a building: Not every single person needs it, but it significantly removes barriers for those who do, and signifies to everyone that the building is an accessible place. We can do the same thing for our students impacted by trauma when we remove barriers and use trauma-informed strategies as a whole school.

The following represent the Essential Elements for a Trauma-Informed School System: It is very important to remember that Trauma Informed Teaching is PROACTIVE never reactive!

Essential Elements of a Trauma-Informed School System

1. Identifying and assessing traumatic stress.
2. Addressing and treating traumatic stress.
3. Teaching trauma education and awareness.
4. Having partnerships with students and families.
5. Creating a trauma-informed learning environment (social/emotional skills and wellness).
6. Being culturally responsive.
7. Integrating emergency management & crisis response.
8. Understanding and addressing staff self-care and secondary traumatic stress.
9. Evaluating and revising school discipline policies and practices.
10. Collaborating across systems and establishing community partnerships.

Teachers know the importance of building positive relationships with students and their families. These relationships are even more important for students who are experiencing trauma.

Trauma-informed teaching can help show students that teachers care. It can help teachers provide support. And it can help students recover after a traumatic event.

Description of different trauma informed teaching practices

What does trauma-informed teaching look like? Making simple changes to class structure and interactions with students can have a huge impact on those who are experiencing trauma. Here are strategies for educators to try:

1. Be mindful of your own emotions. Identifying and managing your feelings is the first step in helping students manage theirs. Truly getting to know your students allows you to better understand their behaviors.
2. Expect that students will overreact sometimes. Provide the space and time they need to calm down. Let them know this is a normal response to trauma. Empathy is so very important without lowering your expectations!

• Give students opportunities to talk or write about their experiences. Understanding the reasons behind a student’s behavior can help you respond with empathy.

• Remind yourself that behavior is a form of communication. Try not to take it personally. May times behavior problems are the reason for teacher burnout!

• Communicate with families about what you’re seeing. They might have ideas you could try in class. Or they might ask you for ideas on how to help at home. Create a partnership with families!

• Make sure your teaching is culturally responsive and doesn’t exacerbate traumatic experiences students may have had. Focus on the student NOT the behavior!

• Teach and model social and emotional skills, including positive behavior strategies. Modeling for students is very important!

• Ask the school counselor or other mental health specialist for recommendations and support. For behavior issues, a functional behavioral assessment can help identify what is causing the behavior and how to help.

Two actions that I implement in my education space

Rather than a single technique or tactic, restorative justice, Restorative Practices, is a paradigm shift in how schools consider discipline and how students who break the rules are perceived and addressed.  The goal is to create a new disciplinary system that is highly supportive while also being highly controlled. This system is rooted in respect, healing, empathy, and accountability. Restorative practices seek to do just that – restore relationships and environments. Instead of focusing on punishing the offending student, the focus shifts to repairing relationships between the offending student and the victim or repairing physical damage that may have occurred.

I have been trained in Restorative Practices and I use it constantly in my PE setting. Asking students to reflect on their actions and why certain behaviors are present is the key. I also use Kelso’s Choices, which is a program teaches students to identify the difference between a big problem and a little problem. … The students are then taught a variety of non-violent problem-solving techniques. We have a Kelso’s Choice Wheel that students can go “talk out” the conflict between them. I will then interact with the students once they are able to talk to each other. I am constantly interacting with students so they know that they can rely and TRUST me! This relationship has got to be nurtured and grown daily!